


However We Arrived Here, We Are Home

by AstroGirl



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Coital Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:34:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27948380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: Things to do in bed after sex:  feeding your partner chocolates, cuddling, arguing about whether you're cuddling, sleeping, contemplating divine predestination vs. free will, being ridiculously in love.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 82
Collections: Gen Prompt Bingo Round 19





	However We Arrived Here, We Are Home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gen Prompt Bingo, round 19, for the prompt "The Early Hours before Dawn." Fun fact: this is the third time I've written that particular prompt for Gen Prompt Bingo.

Afterward, they sit up in Aziraphale's newly created bed, their naked bodies pressed together as if it's the most natural thing in the world, and eat chocolates.

Well, in truth Aziraphale is eating most of the chocolates. Which seems only fair, as he likes them better than Crowley does. And very lovely they are, too, a delicious dessert after -- he finds himself almost giggling at the thought -- after his delightful demonic main course.

Crowley smiles at him as he pops a chocolate truffle into his mouth, an expression so captivated and fond that Aziraphale suddenly cannot bear the thought that, in this moment, there might be anything he fails to share with Crowley. 

"Here, darling," he says, something in him thrilling at the endearment, at how casually he is able to let it escape. He plucks a confection from the box, dark chocolate wrapped around a sweet cream center, and raises it to Crowley's mouth.

Crowley's lips part, and for a moment Aziraphale finds himself thinking, _Oh, so_ that's _what it feels like when he watches me eat, no wonder he likes it so much_ , and then Crowley swallows, sucking Aziraphale's fingertips in after the chocolate, licking them clean with his clever, flickering tongue.

Crowley releases his fingers and Aziraphale leans in to replace them with his mouth. Chocolate and Crowley-lips, what a delightful combination of flavors. It may be his new favorite, although he thinks he'll have to sample it a few more times to tell. What a marvelous world, to keep providing him with new pleasures such as these! To think, this combination of tastes might have existed since the invention of chocolate, and only now is he free to sample it.

Perhaps Crowley's thoughts are running along the same lines, because he snugs his arm around Aziraphale, pressing them together more tightly, and says, "Just imagine, we could have been doing this for the last six thousand years." He says the words lightly, but there's something soft and wistful in his expression.

"You know we couldn't," Aziraphale says, as gently as he can, and caresses Crowley's face.

"Yeah, I know." Crowley's face moves under his touch, cheek caressing fingers caressing cheek. "Eh, we're doing pretty good, anyway, aren't we? Making up for lost time."

"I don't think of it as lost time," says Aziraphale, softly and slowly. "Not any of the time we spent together, no matter the circumstances."

Crowley looks for a second as if he wants to say something joking, dismissive, something intended to deflect away the sincerity of the sentiment, but instead he leans forward and kisses Aziraphale again. Lips and chocolate. Still as delightful as the first time. Aziraphale lets his mouth linger, lets the soft motion of Crowley's mouth say all the beautiful true things he still has trouble letting out in words.

"Well," says Aziraphale as the kiss sweetly reaches its conclusion. "I will admit, it _would_ have been terribly nice, wouldn't it, if we were able to... to cuddle, like this. Earlier."

Crowley pulls his face back a little, even as his arm grips Aziraphale tighter. " _Cuddle?_ " He groans, but there is sparkling laughter in his eyes. Amazing how expressive they are, without the glasses. "Demons don't _cuddle_!"

"Oh, no?" says Aziraphale with all the blandness he can muster. He rubs his face against the demon's shoulder, one bare leg entwining with Crowley's. "What would you call it then?"

"I-- It-- Aargh. _Not_ cuddling," Crowley says, cuddling him back.

Making love with Crowley was a revelation, but this? This feels like... like _being home_. Like what the humans mean, perhaps, when they say something "feels like Heaven."

Aziraphale wonders if humans do feel like this with their lovers, if their forms can contain this much happiness, or if he is especially blessed by his angelic nature. He suspects this may be the most joyfully contented anyone has ever felt since the Creation. But perhaps every human feels precisely the same, including this sense that such happiness must surely be unequaled in history. (And, oh, if that is true, then the world very much _needed_ saving. There needs to be more of this in the universe. An eternity of it, for everyone.)

"Demons don't cuddle?" he says, kissing Crowley's shoulder. "But you do, my dear. You _are_ cuddling." Do his words sound as giddy as he feels? As warm, as _right_? "Perhaps retired demons do."

"There aren't any," says Crowley, kissing his hair. "Only me."

Aziraphale looks up at him. "Yes," he says, full of the triumph of logic now, on top of everything else. "So you get to define what retired demons do or don't do. Don't you?" 

Crowley looks genuinely thoughtful for a moment, considering this. "Huh, 'spose I do." He sighs in mock defeat. "All right, angel, fine. You can have a _cuddle_."

"You're so good to me," Aziraphale says, laughing. 

For a while, they cuddle in silence, unabashed, and Aziraphale thinks of nothing but the feel of the demon in his arms, and the glowing warmth in his heart, and the next six thousand years of this ahead of them.

Until, slowly, Crowley's eyes begin to slide closed. 

"Sleepy, darling?" Aziraphale says. The word feels less thrilling the second time, more familiar. As if it's been a part of them all along.

Crowley makes one of those noises he makes when he's annoyed with himself. "Sorry, angel," he says and kisses Aziraphale's cheek.

"It's perfectly all right. You can sleep if you like. I have kept you up, rather." 

Indeed, the night has reached the point, now, where late hours have begun to transform unnoticed into early ones. There may be a metaphor in there, Aziraphale thinks. He finds it rather pleasing.

"What kind of human cliché do you take me for?" Crowley says. He is clearly fighting to keep his eyes open now, and Aziraphale finds himself entranced by the soft, sleepy yellow of them. "Falling asleep after sex."

"I believe it's only a cliché if it's immediately after," says Aziraphale. 

"I know you don't sleep," says Crowley quietly. "I don't want to leave you alone."

"You won't," Aziraphale says. "I quite like the idea of holding you as you sleep."

Crowley's eyes search his for a moment. "Really?"

"Oh, yes." He says it with absolute conviction, the thought making his already full heart swell even further.

He has seen Crowley asleep before, a number of times. He can still vividly remember the first time, in an inn near Golgotha on a terrible day he only now feels free to admit was terrible. There had only been one room, and they had both felt a desperate, unspoken desire for some form of shelter, for a space apart from human suffering and grief. He had watched Crowley sleep all that night, thinking that it ought to be wrong for a demon to be willing to make himself so vulnerable in an angel's company, that an angel ought to feel some shame in that. But instead, he only felt terribly, terribly glad for the comfort of Crowley's presence.

How on Earth did it take him so long to put the word "love" to that feeling, to understand precisely what it meant?

"All right," says Crowley. "If you're sure."

"Never surer."

They nestle down together in the downy plushness of the bed, and Aziraphale wraps his arms around Crowley, cradling him close. The demon yawns, his breathing slowing, his body relaxed and loose, as if he has never known uncertainty or fear. "'Night, angel," he breathes.

"Goodnight, love," says Aziraphale, the words soft in Crowley's ear. And Crowley, accepting them, slips quietly into sleep.

To the gentle rhythm of the demon's breathing, Aziraphale finds his mind drifting to his first days on Earth. He has come so far since then. He, and Crowley, and the world have changed so much. But he feels now a little as he did then: like the guardian of something profound and life-changing and precious. Funny how things happen, isn't it? The angel put here to guard the Tree from the serpent, back when the world was little more than a beautiful dream, watching instead over the serpent's dreams and feeding him the fruits of human knowledge in the form of chocolate creams.

He wonders, as the dawn rises in his window and the first rays of light settle like a halo in the flame of Crowley's hair, whether this was always meant to happen, from the beginning. All part of the Ineffable Plan, whose nature he will never understand, but whose beginning and end, he once was led to believe, are rooted in love.

Or whether none of it was planned at all. Whether they -- one angel, one demon, and several billion humans -- have built this world, this life, and this moment entirely for themselves. Whether they could have ended up in some darker, colder world instead. Or still in Eden, innocent and dreaming, and, no doubt, horrifically bored.

He doesn't know. Perhaps, from God's perspective, there is no meaningful difference between free will and fate. Perhaps it doesn't matter. All he knows is, today he has a choice. Every day, from now on, he has a choice.

He cuddles his demon closer and smiles up at the rising sun.


End file.
